


Oh Look, a Flower!

by Lortan



Category: Original Work
Genre: The main character totally dies, if you're wondering.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-11
Updated: 2019-03-11
Packaged: 2019-11-15 12:38:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18073550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lortan/pseuds/Lortan
Summary: There's a girl in our woods.Or, why not to follow a Faerie trickster into a cave where you know people have drowned.Or, why not to trust things with glowy eyes and whom torture innocent frogs.Note: The title is actually completely irrelevant.





	Oh Look, a Flower!

There's a girl in our woods. I've seen her. With a halo of ever changing curls of hair the pristine white colour of table salt and ears big, brown and thin like a bat on top of her head. She has eyes the colour of bright green parakeet feathers that twinkle and catch fire when she's excited. She hangs upside down from branches by the paths, sits among thorns, on big rocks by the creek that are smoothed by decades of running water, and wades in the cold water, feet bare despite the sharp rocks clearly visible beneath.

Whenever I catch a glimpse of her, she grins at me with yellowed teeth, and if I try to talk to her or get to her, she runs off. Sometimes I try to follow her, but I can never catch up before she slips down the tiny cave where the water of the creek gets deeper and picks up speed, and goes underground, where the current gets stronger and you can hear the faint crashing of water on rocks beneath your feet even when standing on the bank.

The Deadman's Dip, my father calls it, rather morbidly might I add. My mother warns me to stay away. My sisters tell ghost stories of people who have disappeared down it, and never been found, and my lone brother ignores it completely, too occupied by his comic books to bother exploring outside.

I'm the only one that adventures down there anymore, now that all of my siblings have grown. I wonder if they have ever even seen the girl in our woods. Maybe only I can see her.

Today, I am not going to lose her. I am going to catch her.

I find her torturing a frog, squeezing and picking at it before she seemingly grows bored and tosses it into the undergrowth, where it is snatched up by a thin black cat with hungry eyes. I didn't see it there before, and for a moment I wonder about black cats supposedly meaning bad luck, before her eyes catch on me, and light up like green fire.

When she darts off, I am ready, and follow.

I've grown up in these woods. Explored the paths and undergrowth with my sisters, Tabitha May, Ellie and Elliot, and Karenth since I was old enough that my mother deemed me ready, and shooed me out with them so that she could take a nap. We'd go out with family dogs, golden retrievers and dachshunds and multicoloured blue heeler mutts, and know we'd be safe with them and one another. I can steal across rocks peeking out of the water without causing a ripple, I know where to find the tastiest ice in the winter, what patches of moss are slippery, where snakes commonly lay sunning on the path.

My sisters grew too old for childish follies like exploring creeks and caves years ago, and somehow, whenever I follow the girl, with her thin veined bat ears, cloud of curls that change everyday, and absolute surefootedness, I always feel clumsy and lost.

I know where she's heading, the same place as always. The Deadman's Dip. She heads towards it with the same air of confidence as she always has when escaping from my curiosity, smirk on her berry stained lips.

I'm going to wipe that smirk off her face and replace it with admiration today, I tell myself, and run faster.

She changes the way she runs, drops her weight and moves her shoulders more fluidly, and I know she's preparing to drop to the ground and skid into the now deep creek, where she will rush with the water down the crack in the bedrock that is hidden in the cave.

When she drops down more and stops running, falling down sideways on her knees as the ground at the edge of the steep bank gives way beneath her, I lunge.

My painted fingers close around air, and I plunge down into the water after her. Rushing fills my ears and water goes up my nose, and I feel myself being swept away. Rock almost immediately fills my vision as I am swept into the mouth of the Dip.

Above me, hanging upside down from roots that have imbedded themselves in the rock, the girl hangs, stomach exposed in the dim light and shirt around her head. Bright green eyes glow at my and I hear a naselly but still somehow sweet sounding laugh as I crash down with the water into the crack.

There's still a girl in our woods.

But there used to really be two.

**Author's Note:**

> ....so I have a minor obsession with the Fae. Bite me. Unless of course you're a redcap or any other type of creature with teeth that are actually sharp, in which case, please do not.
> 
> Honestly I may have an obsession with creeks, too. I blame my childhood.
> 
> Thank you for reading, please leave a comment, and have a pleasantly Faerie free day! Unless, as aforementioned, you are a redcap, of course, in which case that statement doesn't apply to you. Anyhow. Byeeeeee!


End file.
